Uranotaenia unguiculata Edwards, 1913 are attracted to sound, feed on amphibians, and are infected with multiple viruses

Abstract

BackgroundUranotaenia unguiculata Edwards, 1913 is a species of mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) native to central Europe. Recently a novel lineage of the West Nile virus (WNV-lineage 4c) was identified in pools of adult female Ur. unguiculata. To increase the body of knowledge about this species, various trapping methods were evaluated to determine the most efficient method for capturing adult female Ur. unguiculata.ResultsSound traps collected equivalent numbers of female Ur. unguiculata as low-hanging light-baited downdraft traps. Hosts were identified as Pelophylax lessonae and P. ridibunda (Anura: Ranidae) species group frogs from the blood found in engorged females. In addition to confirming infection by WNV-lin. 4c, a potentially integrated flavivirus sequence was detected in male mosquitoes. A novel Alphamesonivirus 1 (Nidovirales: Mesoniviridae) was found to be widespread in the Ur. unguiculata population and is herein described.ConclusionsEfficient collection methods for Ur. unguiculata for arbovirus surveillance reflect mosquito questing behavior. Uranotaenia unguiculata targets frog species which call from the water, and it is likely that the novel WNV-lin. 4c is maintained in a frog-mosquito transmission cycle. The improved trapping methods listed here will assist future studies of the vector status of Ur. unguiculata for WNV and other arboviruses.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13071-018-3030-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

DNA-aided identification of Culex mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) reveals unexpected diversity in underground cavities in Austria

“…Generally, little is known about these taxa as they are rarely collected (Zittra and Waringer 2015; Zittra et al 2016 , 2017b ). Sophisticated trapping devices might be necessary to capture and investigate such rarely collected, yet not necessarily rare species (Camp et al 2018 ). The species-rich genera Aedes and Ochlerotatus mainly hibernate in their immature stages (Becker et al 2010 ) and were therefore, as expected, not recorded in this study.…”

Feeding patterns revealed host partitioning in a community of frog‐biting mosquitoes

“…uniformis feed on frogs through the year in an opportunistic manner. Similarly, some studies have shown that Uranotaenia mosquitoes feed on anuran blood (Borkent & Belton, 2006;Toma et al, 2014;Camp et al, 2018;Reeves et al, 2018), but the feeding behaviour of species in this genus had not been documented for the species studied here. Uranotaenia rutherfordi had previously been reported only once in Sri Lanka during a mosquito survey performed in the early 1900s from the same locality, Peradeniya in Kandy District (Barraud, 1934).…”

“…lowii Borkent & Belton, 2006), Europe (Ur. unguiculata Camp et al, 2018), and Japan (Ur. nivipleurma, Ur.…”

“…While niche partitioning is expected among coexisting species that share limited resources (Schoener, 1974;Simard et al, 2009), further work is necessary to understand how interspecies competition may have led to niche partitioning among Uranotaenia species. In addition, these species-specific relationships suggest potentially interesting co-evolutionary interactions between them and, if they act as vectors for pathogens like other Uranotaenia species (Camp et al, 2018), the parasites they transmit.…”

“…Hematophagous insects that specialise in attacking frogs, such as frog-biting midges (Diptera: Corethrellidae McKeever, 1977;Bernal et al, 2006;Borkent, 2008), can use the mating calls of their anuran host and could selectively approach some species of the host over others. In addition to frog-biting midges, some species of mosquitoes from the genus Uranotaenia also primarily feed on anuran hosts (Heatwole & Shine, 1976;Kay et al, 1979;Cupp et al, 2004;Borkent & Belton, 2006;Toma et al, 2014;Camp et al, 2018;Reeves et al, 2018) and have also been recognised to use the mating calls of male anurans to locate them (Borkent & Belton, 2006;Toma et al, 2014;Camp et al, 2018). So far, however, there have been no reports of species-specific associations or host partitioning in flies specialised on anuran hosts (Borkent, 2008;Grafe et al, 2019).…”